The Cretan Windmill

The WOT is committed to designs that can be made in basic workshops. Therefore, only standard materials are being used; no exact operations are present in the design and no expensive equipment is required. With this in mind, the “Cretan Windmill” is designed.

The Cretan windmill was built in 1976 and has proved to be very reliable. It is one of the most special and beautiful mills on the WOT-field. It is almost entirely built of wood. The rotor is the same as they are on Crete (an island in the Mediterranean) and has a diameter of six meters. The mill has no brake, so in case of an approaching storm, the sails have to be pulled down in order to stop the blades of turning. Through a particular mechanism, the rotor drives a piston pump (a rotary motion is converted into a back-and-forth motion). This allows the mill to pump up water from 15 meters deep. With a wind speed of 4 meters per second (9 Miles per Hour; 3 Beaufort) the mill will give 15 liters of water per minute to a height of 10 meters. In the case of lower altitudes, the mill provides more water per minute. To build this mill, woodworking tools are needed.

Check out our Construction manual for a Cretan Windmill (PDF) and other water supply publications.